David Handler - The Snow White Christmas Cookie

“Casey, now is not a good time,” she responded, politely but firmly.

He ducked under the barricade and started out onto the causeway anyway. “But we have to talk.”

“Casey, I have a personal situation to deal with right now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“What time?”

“As soon as I can. I don’t know when it’ll be.”

“I just want to talk. Why are you being such a bitch?”

“Casey, this isn’t appropriate behavior. There are boundaries to our relationship.”

“ Boundaries? What does that mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means,” she said, maintaining that same polite, firm voice. “Now please leave.”

Casey didn’t budge. Just gaped at her in disbelief.

“Why don’t you take off?” Mitch suggested. “Josie’s had a hard morning.”

“You shut up,” Casey snarled in response.

“Mitch, please stay out of this.”

“Yeah, Mitch , mind your own business.”

“Actually, this is my business. You’re trespassing on private property. My private property. There’s a great big sign posted right over there, see it? Josie asked you to leave. Now I’m telling you to leave.”

“But I want to talk to her!”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

Casey curled his lip at him. “Oh, sure, I get it now. You want to do her, don’t you? Or are you already doing her?”

Josie let out a gasp. “Casey, you are way out of line.”

Mitch started toward him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he jeered.

“No, I’m not sure that I did. Would you like to repeat that?”

“Mitch, don’t do this,” Josie said pleadingly.

“I bet your girlfriend the trooper doesn’t know about you two. She was asking me a million stupid questions in the ambulance. She’s a total bitch.”

“You really like that word, don’t you?” Mitch stood face-to-face with Casey now. “You’re on private property. Leave.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Casey warned him.

“ Leave. ”

Casey shoved him. It wasn’t much of a shove. He was all blubber. Mitch wasn’t. He shoved Casey back and sent him tumbling onto his butt. Casey got right back up and came rushing at him. Mitch sidestepped him and shoved him to the causeway again, this time planting his work boot on Casey’s neck and plastering his fat face to the snow-crusted wooden planks.

“Are you going to behave yourself or do I have to throw you in the water?”

Casey started squirming and whimpering like a little school-kid. “Let me up, will ya?”

“Not until you promise to behave yourself.”

Josie put her hand on Mitch’s arm. “Mitch, his face is going to freeze to the causeway.”

“Good, it’ll be a vast improvement. Say you’ll behave yourself!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll … behave myself.”

Mitch removed his foot from Casey’s neck and helped him up. “Now get back in your truck and get the hell out of here.”

“You’ll be sorry you did that,” Casey vowed, shaking his fist at him.

“Look at me-I’m quaking with fear.”

Casey slunk back to his truck and drove off, his wheels spinning in the deep snow.

“Mitch, that wasn’t necessary,” Josie said scoldingly.

“I know, but it was fun.”

“This is a side of you I’ve never seen before. You have anger issues.”

“No, I don’t. I wasn’t the least bit angry.” He looked at her curiously. “He’s the client who you were with when Kylie went boom?”

“Yes.”

“He seems to have a major crush on you.”

“It happens. Some of my male clients, especially the younger ones, can get emotionally involved. Casey’s lonely. He needs a girlfriend.”

“He needs a new personality, too.”

Another vehicle was approaching the causeway now. This one was the black Cadillac hearse from Dousson Mortuary.

“Oh, good, they’re finally here.” Mitch inserted his coded plastic card in the security slot to raise the barricade.

The driver, a young black guy, rolled down his window and said, “Sorry it took us so long, bro. It is some kind of a mess out there.”

Josie drew in her breath. “Mitch, is Bryce still here?”

“I’m afraid so. That’s why I’ve been clearing the causeway.”

“Where do I go, bro?”

“Just follow the pathway that I’ve cleared to the big, natural-shingled house. He’s in the downstairs bedroom. I’ll be right behind you.” Mitch stepped aside so that the hearse could start its way out to the island.

“I–I can’t believe he’s still…” Josie started to shake. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. “This whole day … it’s some kind of a nightmare. I’m going to lose it, I swear.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing great.”

“Mitch, I’m not doing great at all. My life is a total mess.” She let out a grief-stricken sob and then threw herself into his arms.

Mitch put his arms around her as she cried and cried, hugging him tight. She was more compactly built than Des but strong for her size. It was like being hugged by a python. “I know it all seems overwhelming,” he said. “But it’ll work out. We’ll work it out together. What you need right now, more than anything else, is a nice heaping bowl of Cocoa Puffs.”

She pulled away from him, laughing through her tears. “You always know how to make me feel better. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mitch.”

“You’d do fine. You are doing fine.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to be awfully clingy for the next few days.”

“Be as clingy as you want.”

“I won’t send you running for the hills?”

“Not a chance. I’m your naybs, remember?”

She gazed at him with her one good eye, which was huge and shiny. Then she hugged him again, gently this time. “Mitch, you are so much more to me than the guy next door. Don’t you know that?”

W hat in the hell am I doing?

Des pulled around behind the firehouse and used her key to the back door. She went directly up the stairs to the meeting room, which had a window that offered a panoramic view of the entire Dorset Street Historic District buried under its blanket of pure white snow. The village’s highest concentration of mailboxes was situated directly across from her-the boxes for the Captain Chadwick House condo colony and the four houses that adjoined it on Maple Lane. More than a dozen mailboxes bunched together right there. The flags on three of them were raised, meaning the residents had left something for Hank to take.

Des set a folding chair in front of the window and parked herself there, testing out the zoom lens on her Nikon D80. It was so powerful that she could make out the words Approved by the Postmaster General on the boxes halfway to Town Hall. She’d brought her lunch-a container of steaming-hot clam chowder from Mitzi’s fish market. Des opened the container and helped herself to some. It was chilly in the firehouse. And the wind was starting to pick up, rattling the windows. She kept her jacket on as she settled in.

Why am I doing this?

Because this was her town. These were her people. If someone was preying on them then she wanted to be the one to handle it. True, the jurisdictional boundaries were pretty clear. If a crime involved the U.S. Postal Service then it was a job for the postal inspectors. If an illegal prescription drug ring was targeting Dorset, then that was a job for the state’s Narcotics Task Force. But Des didn’t like the idea of reaching out for help. So she was giving herself this day to see what she could see. If nothing jumped out at her then, okay, she’d play it by the book. But she needed to do this her way. If she didn’t then she’d just be an empty uniform.